Thursday, September 3, 2009

Book Review: The Last Human War by D.S. Sault

The Last Human War by D.S. Sault was a good science fiction story that kept me reading. In the universe that Sault created humanity is on the verge of extinction, although those humans known to remain are under strict control of an alien race. And the worlds and societies Sault created aren’t cheap rip-offs or a mirror image of some other author’s, or movie’s, or television show’s universe.

The plot moves along at a decent pace. I found it dragging only once (during a long escape section—I don’t want to give away too much of the plot), but even in that I found bits of things that interested me. While not every character had great depth, the ones that mattered did. Even with the aliens, I could see where they were coming from, despite the fact it wasn’t from a human perspective or based on a human culture.

D.S Sault provided plenty of action and I appreciated the space combat and tactics, both at the fleet and ship to ship level.

Beyond that, Sault’s novel held my interest because although sometimes I guessed where things were going, other times I was surprised—yeah, it made sense, I just didn’t see it coming.

There are some minor typos and occasional formatting concerns that I suspect will be corrected in the second printing, but that is the English teacher coming out in me.

To help you gauge what my tastes in SF are, I’ve also read and enjoyed John Ringo, Harry Turtledove, and Roger Zelazny. I don’t think you have to be a hardcore SF fan to enjoy The Last Human War. If you like Stargate SG1 or Star Trek or even Babylon 5, it might be up your literary alley.